Most of us know that one way to restore a part of bowling back is to focus on the collegiate and youth bowlers. So many younger people, from grade school to college age, bowl, but not on a regular basis. A lot of those who do bowl on a regular basis do not do it for the bowling; rather, they do it for the socialization, the food, the drinks (with or without alcohol), and on some cases, merely for the purpose of getting out of the house/dorm/apartment, voluntarily or not.

The reason why I bring the topic up is because in my bowling league, there are very few youth who appear to be focused on bowling, including me. I love the sport of bowling and as much as I do like bowling for fun, I continue to bowl because I want to better myself; I continue to bowl for the purpose of finally making a single lifetime commitment for once.

I am a little concerned about the fact that so few youth bowlers take it seriously in my area. I know that the collegiate bowlers take it slightly more seriously on average even though I don't know of any in my region of this state, but a lot of kids and teenagers do not take advantage of learning the sport (key word: sport; renting house shoes and one or more house balls do not exactly constitute the sport side of bowling to me). My high school is one of many [across the state and country] which do not offer bowling teams of any sort (no boys' or girls' divisions; no junior varsity or varsity divisions); this could be a contributing factor to the general lack of interest in bowling.

I think the economic deficiency is definitely, without a doubt, a factor in the lack of interest or funding going towards bowling leagues, tournaments, teams, et cetera. Not only has this occurred amongst youth and collegiate bowlers, but certainly also amongst adult bowlers.

In the future, I think I may be planning on becoming a USBC collegiate/youth ambassador or spokesperson and promote the sport in a non-invasive way, just enough to stir up a lot of interest. If not that, I might become a USBC-certified coach, especially for the younger bowlers; teaching the collegiate and youth bowlers fundamentals is so important to help turn bowling into a major success and for the retention of bowlers.

Sorry for the long-winded post; I just love bowling and would hate to watch it go down the drain completely. I keep thinking that one day, I may be the difference between the complete demise of bowling and the revival of bowling, though maybe that is slightly egotistical of me!

Collegiate bowling is some of the most exciting bowling going on, but sadly if it doesn't make money for the schools it won't be promoted heavily (see football and basketball vs. any other sport).

For high school bowling, start on the club level, for most schools you need a faculty member and then a set number of interested students. See if you can get a few other schools in the area to start a club as well and then hopefully the faculty members can organize a tournament or meet between the schools. You'll also need coaching, sometimes the pro-shop can help, sometimes you can get volunteers from leagues. Lots of challenges, but nothing good comes easy, it takes work.

Taking a sport from the club level to a full sports level can be a challenge because that means the school has to dedicate resources to it, but it is possible if their is enough interest.

The Rochester, NY area is thriving with Youth, High School bowlers. My daughter is one of them and she loves it. The competition here is very good. I posted her resume video for college above in the forums. Take a look

Hi Eternal, Being your from Ohio also I am guessing youth bowlers not being serious about bowling is restricted to certain areas. I am not sure what events you bowl in. But from my experience the JTBA's, the high school opens, Teen Masters,Junior Gold qualifiers and many more events here in Ohio have tons of serious youth bowlers in them.

The biggest problem I see is getting the information about the events. So many centers only seem concerned with their center so they don't promote each others events much. Unless your in the loop easy to miss a lot of good events. I just recently discovered the Kentucky youth open which is an awesome tournament but I stumbled on it by accident. I agree there are some centers that don't seem to get that youth bowlers become adult bowlers and keep their future business going, but most I deal with go out of their way to take care of their youth bowlers. My High school didn't have a team either even though every other school in our league did our AD had no interest in bowling until I signed my letter of intent to bowl in college this year. Then it was oh I didn't realize how many bowling scholarships are out there, even though my father and my coach had been working for four to get a club team together. Hope hope things work out well with your dream of being an Ambassador for our great sport. We definitely need as many as we can get.

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